


Little One

by esama



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Gen, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-21 02:18:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14274789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/esama/pseuds/esama
Summary: "Desmond's not pregnant. At least, as far as I can tell. Might have just had a big lunch."





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> There's stuff about weight issues and losing weight which is not intended as fat shaming but might read as such. Fair warning for that.  
> Proofread credit to Nimadge

Desmond Miles is not a funny man. Shaun still isn't sure what kind of man he really is, but he's definitely certain he is not, in fact, a funny one. No matter what Desmond himself thinks.

"What are you doing?" Shaun asks flatly after having found the said not funny man in their awkward kitchen corner in the Sanctuary under Auditore Villa – eating last of their ice-cream straight from the bucket. He's using a big spoon too. "Are you seriously sitting in the dark alone eating ice-cream out of the box – what is this?"

"I had a craving," Desmond says, watching him calmly and curiously – as if he's the mental one here and not the git sitting alone in the dark eating ice-cream straight out of the box.

"You had a _craving_."

"Yeah," Desmond says, takes out another spoon full and sticks it into his mouth. "Craving."

Shaun narrows his eyes suspiciously. Has he lost it or is this some roundabout way of combating Bleeding Effect? _No ice-cream in 16th century Italy, therefore, if I sit in here the darkness eating ice-cream out of the bucket like a sad divorced woman from a bad rom-com, I can't possibly mistake myself for a 16th century Assassin_?

"Craving," Shaun repeats slowly. "What, like a pregnant woman?"

Desmond smiles blandly and points the spoon at him. "Not as far as you can tell, anyway," he says and sticks the spoon back into the ice-cream.

Shaun stares at him for a moment and then decides, it's too bloody late for this, Desmond is too bloody weird, and whatever he's doing with the ice-cream, he can damn well do on his own. "You know what," Shaun says. "I don't care. I'm going to go out and take the piss I was planning to take and then I'm just going to forget you being weird alone in the darkness now."

"Sure thing, Shaun."

* * *

 

"Have you noticed that Desmond is gaining weight?"

Shaun lifts his head from the dictionary and stares across the table at Lucy, who in turn is staring at the sleeping form of Desmond Miles, who's wrapped up in his sleeping bag under the statue of Altaïr. "What?" Shaun asks. "Seriously?"

Lucy shrugs, looking a little awkward. "I noticed it when we were going through the tunnels," she says and shrugs. "Side effect of the Animus, I'm afraid – Subjects tend to suffer muscular atrophy, one even had bed sores from prolonged Animus sessions."

Well, duh, Shaun thinks but doesn't say, looking over to Desmond's curled up form. He does have a round sort of shape to him these days. "It was your job to train him and what not if I recall," Shaun says. "Have him do sit-ups or something. Might do him some good beyond burning off a few calories. Like, repair whatever damage Rebecca's demon couch is doing to his spine."

"Hey," Rebecca says, from the said demon couch. "Baby has the best ergonomic design out there, if anything, she's doing _good_ to people's spines."

"Yours, maybe – but Desmond has good twenty centimetres on you. I don't think his spine goes where yours does on the chair."

"Bah," Rebecca answers.

Lucy doesn't say anything, looking at Desmond. "Maybe we should start getting more fruits and veggies on our food runs," she comments. "Honestly, it might do all of us good."

* * *

 

"What the hell is that?" Shaun asks flatly.

Desmond looks down. "It's a sandwich," he says slowly. "Are you… okay, Shaun?"

"I'm fine, and I can see what it's supposed to be – but what the –" Shaun makes a motion at the thing. "That is not a sandwich."

If anything it looks like it, whatever _it_ is, possibly ate the sandwich and then transformed like a horror movie monster into something… gruesome. It kind of looks like it's inside out too, with more stuffings on the top than between whatever Desmond thinks passes for bread there. Where the hell did he even get the ingredients for it?

"No way can you eat all that," Shaun says. "I fact, I bet you can't, I bet you ten quid."

"I can't even do anything with that," Desmond points out. "No shop runs for me, remember?"

"Then I'll get you something nice the next time I go out on one. Anything you want, which costs around ten quid," Shaun says and makes a face as Desmond bundles up his monstrosity of a food item into a wrap and then –

He takes a bite of it.

Shaun shudders.

"I want peanut butter," Desmond says, staring right at him like some sort of psychopath while eating his monstrosity of a sandwich. "A whole lot of peanut butter. And pickles."

"I think that will mess up Lucy's planned communal diets here," Shaun says and makes a face – because now he's imagining peanut butter on pickles and really he might hurl now. "Actually you're messing up your diet right now, I think. Doesn't Lucy have you on calorie restrictions or something? You really shouldn't be eating that. Just for biohazard reasons."

Desmond arches his eyebrows. "Give me a break," he says, his voice almost creepily bland with sauce smeared all over his scarred lips. Then he grins. "I'm eating for two here, don't you know?"

* * *

 

Shaun watches from the corner of his eye as Desmond raises from another Animus session. It really kind of looks like a zombie rising from death, doesn't it – Desmond goes from perfectly still to sort of stupefied listlessness, with the slack confused look on his face, staring dumbly at nothing. Any day now, he will wake up mumbling about brains – and Shaun is only half convinced it will be because the Animus is turning his brains into a mush.

"Take it easy," Rebecca says automatically, as she always does while she turns to wind the Animus down from the session. "You were in for six hours. Slow movements and small steps now."

Desmond stands up with all the grace of a zombie too, stumbling and swaying slightly… and then he grimaces and leans forward, rubbing his lower back. "Aww, shit," he mutters.

"You alright?" Rebecca asks.

"I'm fine, I'll just walk it off," Desmond mutters, and heads off, rubbing his lower back as he goes, all theatrical and noticeable. He grabs the headset and the watch as he goes, muttering something about his back as he turns to the stairs.

Well, Shaun thinks with a frown. At least he's exercising.

* * *

 

Desmond really does eat pickles with peanut butter, and it really does look as disgusting as it sounds. He makes a show of it too, being all casual and easy going as he sticks one pickle after another right into the jar of peanut butter, ruining it for everyone else before sticking the whole mess into his mouth and just, ew, just ew.

"It's actually pretty good," Desmond says earnestly, his legs stretched out on the seat where Shaun would usually sit, except he refuses to sit beside a _monster_. And Desmond is becoming one, he really is.

"You are one crazy dude," Rebecca says. "How can you do that with a straight face?"

"I'm serious, it's actually really good," Desmond says and then, just to prove a point, sticks another slimy, peanut butter encrusted pickle in his mouth.

"That is by far the most disgusting thing I've ever seen," Shaun says very clearly. "And I've seen people disemboweled. Congratulations, Desmond, you are beyond disgusting."

"I am a miracle of life," Desmond answers calmly and goes for another pickle.

"A miracle of life," Lucy repeats, amused, while coming to the table with a tablet in one hand and a fresh cup of coffee in other. "How do you figure that?"

Desmond looks up, draws a breath to answer – and then he goes completely green. "Scuse me –" he groans and then flails himself off the table and chairs, knocking one of them over before running towards their _please don't use except in emergency_ toilet. A moment later they heard the sounds of throw up from behind the flimsy privacy curtain.

"That's what you get for showing off!" Rebecca laughs after him while Lucy makes a face.

"Screw you too, Becs!" Desmond groans, and throws up again.

Shaun, in the meanwhile, is eyeing Lucy's steaming cup of coffee, his eyes narrowed.

* * *

 

The thing is, Desmond gets nauseous a lot. It's kind of a side effect of Animus – it messes up with the sense of balance, and also there is the sensory feedback and Ezio does a lot of stomach-turning things. It's not that uncommon to hear Desmond rushing behind the curtain to throw up early in the morning, freshly woken from whatever nightmare he had the pleasure of enduring that night.

They'd all been politely ignoring it though. The guy's existence is messed up enough as it is without them pointing out the stuff he can’t do anything to change. Him getting out of shape due to lying around all day is something he can do something about, hence the exercise and the now very veggie heavy diets. Granted, Desmond is somehow circumventing the diet a lot, and where the hell is he getting all the turkey anyway, Shaun would really like to know. When even was the last time any of them bought turkey?

But the nausea, the nightmares, the headaches, the hallucinations – none of them can do much about those, and neither can Desmond, and pointing fingers there wouldn't just be rude, it would be bloody cruel. So they don't.

But Desmond _has_ been sick more and more often.

"Morning sickness," Desmond says fatalistically and shrugs. "What can you do."

"Seriously?" Shaun asks flatly. "Seriously."

Desmond just shrugs again and heads off, rubbing his lower back. Shaun isn't the only one staring after him weirdly as he heads for his pre-Animus run around Monteriggioni – something he's taken to doing every morning at Lucy's health-related urging. It seems to be doing him some good, too, his colour is better.

"Damn, my feet hurt," he then complains after, of course. "I swear my ankles are the size of footballs at this point.

Well, whatever helps him get up in the morning. And if perpetuating this joke cheers the guy up even a bit… Well, who is Shaun to judge? Just the British asshole who has to endure the sight of Desmond smearing peanut butter on everything and eating pickles straight from the jar.

 _Seriously_.

* * *

 

"Hey, Desmond, I got you something," Rebecca says, coming down the stairs with plastic bags on both hands, and something tucked under her arm. As Shaun goes to see if she _finally_ found the right tea, she throws that something at Desmond, who catches the thing from where he is, sitting on the floor, stretching.

It's a packet of digestives.

"Might help settle your stomach," Rebecca says, cheekily. "I had a friend who ate them packet a day when she was pregnant – told me she couldn't live without them."

"Are you seriously humouring him?" Shaun asks under his breath, even as Desmond all but lights up and tears into the packet eagerly. "He's bad enough as it is!"

"What?" Rebecca asks, giving him a wide-eyed look. "It's just a packet of cookies, Shaun. Don't be rude."

"Next we'll be giving him back rubs and foot massages," Shaun mutters, giving Desmond a suspicious, narrow-eyed look. Desmond is warily sniffing at one of the bland looking biscuits before biting into it – and then slumping with something like relief when it doesn't immediately trigger a gag reflex. "Honestly."

In the end, it turns out the digestives are actually helping, though, and Desmond even manages to share the kitchen table with Lucy's coffee cup without hurling again. Him not throwing up all the damn time is really best for everyone's mental health and even Lucy starts losing some of the pinched look of anxiety, so… all the better for all of them.

Though giving Desmond's delusions more fuel at this point…

* * *

 

As part of her project of _"stop Desmond from getting too fat to go into the Animus"_ , Lucy got their hideout a scale. Shaun has very determinedly not stepped on it even once so far – one should never ask a lady's weight, honestly – but Desmond's been ordered to keep track of his weight every day.

So they are all aware that his weight is slowly but steadily growing. Of course, Desmond hadn't been the fittest of guys when he'd been kidnapped by Abstergo – had nice arms, though, from what Shaun has overheard Lucy talking to Rebecca. Desmond had been on the leaner side though, Shaun recalls, sort of skinny really, at least when it comes to his face. He's still all high cheekbones and narrow features, like a bloody model or something. But numbers don't lie. 

"I think the peanut butter has to go," Lucy says.

"Don't you dare," Desmond says and hugs the said peanut butter. "I will literally scratch your eyes out if you touch my peanut butter."

"Desmond," Lucy says, awkward and frustrated. "Listen, I know this is a bit – it's not serious now, but the Animus can have seriously bad physical side effects if we let them go on like this. Sudden weight gain can put a strain on your system and we can't afford any sort of setbacks right now – and we don’t have the capacity to deal with medical emergencies. I'm sorry, but we need you in tip top shape from now on. You need to cut back something. Or exercise more!"

"I already am – I run around Monteriggioni every damn day," Desmond says, and for the first time in a long while he sounds actually kind of bothered about the whole thing. "And eat all the fucking vegetables even though they make me hurl half of the time. I don't know what else I can really do, aside from not spending most of the day lying down on the damn Animus…"

Shaun grimaces. Why does this feel a bit like watching a guy being kicked when he's already down?

"You eat too much junk food," Lucy says firmly. "And Shaun," she adds and points a finger at him. "You need to stop enabling his habits. Desmond needs to eat much healthier than this – the peanut butter has to go."

Desmond bows his head and – _bloody hell_ it actually looks like his lips quiver a bit. Like he's going to cry. Bloody _fuck_ , okay - "You know, muscle weighs more than fat," Shaun says and folds his arms, half defensive and half – he doesn't even know. He is not protective of Desmond Miles, he's really not. Except he is a bit. "Numbers aren't everything you know – you can actually gain weight while _losing_ fat. It's scientifically proven."

Desmond looks up, hesitantly grateful and suspicious.

"Happens sometimes with pregnancies too," Rebecca pipes in from where she's working on the Animus. "Rarely, granted, women tend to get more fat as they get pregnant, what with all the cravings and all, but it's known to happen."

"Desmond is not pregnant!" Lucy shouts, throwing her hands up in the air. "Stop indulging him, both of you. This stops now. Desmond, give me the peanut butter."

"Are you going to say it's for my own good?" Desmond asks suspiciously.

Lucy doesn't say anything, but it's clear on her face. "You're going to be eating healthier from now on," she says firmly. "More protein, less sugar, and less saturated fats. And less salt. The pickles are going to go too."

Judging by the face Desmond makes, that one actually might've hurt him physically. "Fine," he says and turns away. "Whatever."

Shit, Shaun thinks.

* * *

 

The atmosphere in the hideout is somewhere in the level of the sewers for the next couple of days – and Desmond’s nausea is in all-time high. As are his back aches, judging by the way he has to take a moment every time before getting up from the Animus. He also is starting to avoid wearing his shoes more and more whenever he can manage it, kicking them off when he goes to the Animus and sighing with obvious discomfort when he has to put them on.

Lucy's solution to all of this? More training outside the sanctuary, longer walks in the morning, stretching – and stomach crunches. Desmond does have a bit of a gut going on.

"F-fuck," is Desmond's pronouncement when he tries. "No, nope, this is not happening, I can't do it."

"Stop being a baby, Desmond," Lucy says and sighs. "Come on, I'll hold your feet – you can do it."

Shaun watches from the side, feeling incredibly awkward about the whole thing – Desmond seriously can't do a proper sit-up. He can pull twice his own weight in a pull-up, can pump set of twenty push-ups without breaking a sweat, but he cannot do a sit-up. Shaun has never been one for the physical side of Assassinhood and _he_ can do reasonable amount of sit-ups with minimal effort. How can guy as obviously fit as Desmond have this much trouble?

It's gone a bit beyond just being a funny gag and kind of even beyond Lucy's crusade of keeping Desmond healthy at all cost. This is something different.

Shaun makes a cup of tea and watches as Lucy and Desmond give up on the stomach crunches and try for squats instead – something Desmond is having definitely better luck with. It's still kind of awkward to watch, because Desmond has to stop every now and then to wince at his back and it's… it's not faked for laughs, is it? The guy's back is seriously hurting.

"Oh, fuck – what –" Desmond grunts and grabs at his stomach, making a weird face.

"What?" Lucy asks, frowning.

"Uh, indigestion. Probably," Desmond says, making a face. "Just… a really weird feeling. Never mind, let's keep going. "

Shaun scowls into his cup of badly scalded tea. Seriously. Bump on his belly, bad back, all the nausea, swollen feet, yadda yadda yadda… now, whatever _that_ was. _Seriously._

There's no bloody way.

* * *

 

Shaun hauls in the day's purchases, another week or so worth of food and essentials, quickly glancing around. He'd spotted Lucy outside taking in the air, and Rebecca should have the night watch, therefore – hah, there, thank god. Rebecca is fast asleep on her bedroll. Good – no one there to witness his lapse to insanity.

Quickly Shaun digs into one of the bags and calls, "Desmond, heads up," before lobbing a packet right at his head.

"What's this?" Desmond asks, catching the thing with ease.

"Reason why I will not visit Monteriggioni pharmacy ever again," Shaun answers. "Just… something for some peace of mind. Or something," he waves a hand and turns to get the groceries into the coolers, determinedly ignoring the weird look Desmond is giving him. He can hear the moment Desmond actually looks at the package, the inhale he draws.

"Are you _serious_?" Desmond asks suspiciously.

Shaun grumbles. "No, I've lost my bloody mind," he mutters. He's got to have. Indulging Desmond's joke from before was something, this, this is something else. "But fuck, it's either this or you have a massive tumour growing in your gut and I can only figure out a quick way to check for one of these options. Take it for a joke or something."

He very carefully doesn't look anywhere near Desmond, feeling the guy's stare on his back – trying not to think about what this might mean, if, if not, whichever it is. Desmond opens the package and there's crinkle of paper being unfolded as Desmond, dutiful health-conscious Assassin that he is these days, reads the instructions.

Shaun doesn't look. He puts the groceries away, taking his damn mind sorting stuff out and he totally isn't tracking Desmond's every movement by hearing, how he heads out – to most likely take a piss. Bloody hell.

Shaun is arranging the tea bag by bag when Desmond comes back and slaps something on the table, something plastic sounding. Shaun closes his eyes. "Please don't tell me you just put something soaked in your pee onto the table where we eat."

"Shaun," Desmond says and his voice is… weird. Bad weird. Tense weird. _Oh shit_ sort of weird.

Shaun laughs and runs a hand over his eyes, knocking his glasses askew. "Okay, I have to tell you, I'm sorry but I have to speak my mind now," he says helplessly. "You, Desmond Miles, are not a funny man. I'm sorry, but there it is. Your jokes are absolutely terrible."

Desmond doesn't say anything and after a moment Shaun finally turns to look. Desmond's expression is just as awkwardly tense as the atmosphere, and he doesn't look like he's joking. Shit. Shaun stands up and looks to the table, to the stick of plastic sitting there. Shaun knows how to read it – he bought the packet, he read the instructions.

A little red cross is a weird sort of portent of doom, really.

"Congratulations," Shaun says faintly. "You're pregnant."


	2. Chapter 2

"It could be testicular cancer," Shaun says, trying to be… he's not sure actually. Comforting? Desmond is just sitting there with his head hanging, quiet and quite possibly freaking his little mind out and it's starting to be more than a little alarming. "Testicular cancer can cause a false positive. The box even has a warning for the ladies using the product to not let their men anywhere near it while in use – which is a funny image when you think about it…"

Desmond lifts his head and looks at him and Shaun falls silent for a moment under his weird gaze, shifting where he's standing nervously. "What I'm saying is that we need more tests," Shaun says. "One positive is hardly a fact. We need more testing and some way to…" he makes a waving motion at Desmond. "To rule out the potential causes for false positives."

"Like testicular cancer," Desmond says flatly.

"Just so," Shaun says and folds his arms. "I mean – you are quite obviously male. The obvious answer here is also rather impossible." Then he frowns. "Are you male?"

"Shaun."

"I mean we're all very intimately familiar with your genes and I am fairly certain you have the regular set of chromosomes for a regular old human male, but, I admit I didn't pay attention to the specific arrangement – and you do have a high concentration of First Civilisation Genes from what we can tell and – "

"Shaun," Desmond says again, slower this time, and Shaun sputters to a halt.

"I mean, of course you're fully male," Shaun mutters.

"Thank you," Desmond says, his hand resting on his belly. "Also I think I can feel the thing kicking."

How exactly are you supposed to take _that_? Shaun just stares at Desmond for a while and then turns and takes off his glasses and cleans them with somewhat shaky hand with the hem of his sweater, as if somehow dirty glasses might've impaired his hearing. Once suitably clean again, he eases the glasses back to his nose, and watched Desmond open his jumper and run a hand over the bump of his belly with a weird, lost look on his face.

"Right," Shaun says, and he's not sure what he's weirded out more by – the whole situation or how very much panicking Desmond _isn't_. "We should get Lucy and tell her everything. And wake Rebecca."

"Yeah," Desmond says distractedly and then lets out a quiet, amused snort. "Huh. Not indigestion then."

* * *

 

"So," Shaun says once everyone is awake and around and paying attention. "Desmond's pregnant."

There is a moment of silence, while Rebecca peers at him over her cup of green tea and Lucy just looks at him, her expression that of someone waiting the punch line. Then they look at Desmond, who is sitting on the Animus couch, his hoodie open, and his hand resting on his stomach.

"Okay," Lucy says finally. "This has gone on long enough and I don't know what you two are up to now, but it has to stop, guys. We have work to do and –"

"No, I'm serious, hundred percent," Shaun says and puts down the pregnancy test Desmond had taken – which is now sitting in a Ziploc bag because _hygiene is important damn it, Desmond_. The red cross of doom is still there, as is the rather obvious directions which are written on the plastic itself; [ - ] means negative, [ + ] means positive.

Cross of doom, how bloody poetic. Maybe the holy symbol of the Assassins should've been a minus sign. Hm.

The girls look at the test, then at Desmond who is lost in his little world – might be in shock actually, he's been doing little more than feel around his belly for a while now, staring at nothing. Then Rebecca starts to laugh and Lucy groans.

"We do not have the time for this," Lucy says and stands up. "Our work is serious – and I know, I _know_ we're all losing it a bit here, and Desmond, I know you're feeling a bit cooped up here, but I really need all of us to be serious here."

"I am – we are," Shaun says and sets the test down. "Seriously bloody serious – I mean, come on," he says and motions to Desmond. "Think about it for a moment."

Lucy groans and runs a hand over her face. "You cannot use an imaginary set of symptoms to – no, I am not even going to humour this," she says and turns towards her computer. "I'm going to give you guys a day, but tomorrow we're all getting back to work, and we're all putting forth hundred percent, alright? We can't afford to –"

Rebecca is still laughing, wiping at her eyes as she looks at Desmond over the back of her chair. "Hey, Dez, can you feel it kick yet?"

"Yeah," Desmond says with a sort of floaty voice of the completely-out-of-it. "I can."

There's another silence, a very _pregnant_ one at that, with all the pun intended. Then, as Lucy looks up to the ceiling with the air of asking the brickwork for strength, Rebecca launches herself out of the plastic kitchen chair and goes to Desmond's side, grinning.

"Can I feel it?" she asks. "Can I, can I, can I?"

Shaun shifts where he stands and quickly tugs his hands under his armpits – hell, he's nowhere near Desmond currently but the idea of _touching_ is, uh. Lucy shakes her head again and turns away while Desmond reaches blindly for Rebecca's hand and guides it to just the side of his bump.

Rebecca grins a little wider for a moment, and then the grin falls completely off her face. She goes sort of pale, actually – it's almost fascinating to watch the realisation dawn on her face, from mirth and indulgence of _hell-yeah-I'll-play-along_ to understanding to the expression of _holy-shit_.

"Holy shit," Rebecca says, her fingers spread out over the curve of Desmond's stomach while Desmond closes his eyes, frowning. "Holy shit – holy _shit_ – Lucy, Lucy, come here."

"Rebecca –"

"Come here," Rebecca says and drags a chair closer with her foot so that she can sit down without taking her hand off. Lucy sighs, hangs her head and then gets up, and goes to feel.

Shaun rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, clearing his throat as the girls surround very pregnant Desmond, and shit hits the fan.

* * *

 

Lucy decides they need more tests, in fact, they need to buy _all of the tests_.

"Every different type they have in stock – two each," she says. "In the meanwhile I am going to go scout out the clinic here in Monteriggioni – maybe they will have some usable equipment for testing for other variables. Testicular cancer can cause a false positive."

"Can testicular cancer give a dude a belly with something moving inside?" Desmond asks wryly.

"No, but a chestburster can," Rebecca says, half grinning and half panicking and gives a sheepish shrug at the look Desmond gives her.

"Which brings us to the question of whether or not Desmond is also going to develop tits," Shaun muses and then shrugs when Desmond turns to give _him_ another look, a worse one. "All things considered it's a viable question!"

"Shut up, Shaun," Desmond says. "I am not going to develop tits."

"Well you didn't know you were going to develop a pregnancy either, so you aren't a very reliable source of foresight here."

Desmond makes a face and wobbles a hand on the air in a sort of so-and-so motion. "Well, actually…"

"Guys, focus," Lucy snaps, looking between them and Desmond. "Pregnancy tests, now," she says, pointing at Shaun. "And Rebecca, can you do a scan on Desmond's DNA with the Animus? A full scan, the whole sequence and not just the parts concerning genetic memory?"

"It will take a while," Rebecca says. "But sure, I can try. Looking for anything specific?"

"Anything out of the ordinary," Lucy says and looks at Desmond. She makes a face, a sort of wincing mixture of sympathy and complete disbelief. "Let's just try to get to the bottom of this before we jump to conclusions, alright? Let's rule out other possibilities. It could still be -"

"A tumour, kicking up a storm in my stomach?" Desmond asks flatly and rubs his belly.

"Well," Lucy says and lets out a frustrated breath. "You're a _man_ , Desmond. I think it's better to be safe than sorry here. So let's do this properly, alright?"

Desmond glances at her and then sighs. "Yeah, alright," he says and lays back down on the Animus couch. "No more sit-ups though."

"No, no more of those," Lucy agrees with a mild, awkward smile. Then she turns to Shaun. "Come on, let's go."

"Can I be the one to scout out the clinic?" Shaun asks as they head out. "I already got weird enough looks from the cashier at the pharmacy for buying the first test."

"Well, which is more likely, two different people finding themselves in need of pregnancy tests, or one wanting verification to the first one?" Lucy asks and pats his shoulder. "Your cover is now a nervous boyfriend with a newly pregnant girlfriend – I suggest you make it good."

"Ugh, great."

The cashier at the pharmacy gives him an even longer stare when he marches up to the counter with eight packets of pregnancy tests. Then, while Shaun tries desperately to not go red all the way up to the roots of his hair, she clears her throat. "Would you like some prenatal vitamins to go with those?" she then offers.

Shaun spends split of a moment praying to a god he doesn't believe in to manifest itself in the floor under his feet and swallow him whole.

"Yes, alright," he then says. "Thank you."

* * *

 

Eight pregnancy tests later, they break into the little clinic of Monteriggioni in the middle of the night.

It's a little strange – okay, it's beyond bloody _bewildering_ – to see Desmond doing all sort of difficult parkour to get at the clinic window, all the while knowing that the bloke is bloody pregnant. But there they are – and it turns out that despite being pregnant and several kilos heavier than normal with a _baby belly_ and everything… Desmond is now their best climber.

"Shouldn't _you_ be doing that?" Shaun mutters as he and Lucy watch from the street how Desmond hangs several meters off the ground on the support of single hand and feet braced onto window frame below him as he eases the window open all the way.

"No Eagle Vision – I wouldn't be able to find or deactivate the security system," Lucy admits and then makes a face. "And Desmond is already better at this than I am."

"What, _seriously_?"

She shrugs awkwardly, then folds her arms and says nothing. Well alright then. Damn.

It confuses every part of Shaun that had been taught by society to be nice and courteous and warily protective of pregnant people, to watch Desmond break into the building. Shaun somehow manages to not say anything, though – but he does kind of bite his lip nervously until Desmond finally makes his way through the building, and opens the door for them.

"There's no one in," Desmond says. "And there's just one camera and a burglar alarm. Come on. I'll show you how to get around them."

They head inside, Lucy quietly locking the door after them. Shaun adjusts his sweater nervously, glancing around the little waiting room area of the clinic, and then turns to follow Lucy as she leads them to where she'd scouted the stuff they needed. Hospitals and clinics are _creepy_ at night.

"Right," Lucy says while quickly turning down the blinds and pulling the curtains over them. "We can't do proper blood work here, they don't really have the equipment for it, but we can do an ultrasound. Get on the table, Desmond."

"Getting on the table," Desmond sighs and does as ordered.

Between them, Shaun and Lucy figure out how to work the ultrasound without too much trouble. It's nowhere near as difficult as an Animus, anyway, and it turns out that Lucy had used one before – back in Abstergo, with Subject 15, the poor woman.

"Pull up your shirt," Lucy orders with a handful of gel at the ready, and Desmond does as ordered. Shaun looks at Desmond and then he looks up at the ceiling for a moment to let that image settle in his head, let it become reality and not some sort of weird… he doesn't even know how to categorise it, really. He thinks he might've seen something like this on a fetish site during his misbegotten youth of hacking.

He slots it under _Desmond is bloody weird_ and then looks again. Yeah. Something about a baby bump under that much body hair is just… he doesn't have a word for it, he really doesn't. Desmond has one hell of a happy trail and it's currently climbing up a bit of a swell and with his bloody _abs_ still visible it's easy to tell it's not fat under there and it's just…

It's _something_ literally unspeakable.

Lucy swallows and smears Desmond's swollen stomach with the gel, making his belly clench a little. "That's cold," Desmond mutters and then lays his head down with a grimace. Lucy makes an apologetic face and then reaches for the transducer probe.

Something about the _worp_ ing sound of an ultrasound doing its thing makes the whole thing a bit too real. Desmond swallows and closes his eyes while Lucy probes around his belly for an image, and with a certain feeling of doom, Shaun turns to the screen. First, a dark mess of flesh and tissues, moving around on the screen as Lucy searches and then – then…

Lucy lets out a breath and Shaun clasps a hand over his mouth to keep from making a noise. Desmond looks up and they almost lose the image – but there it is. A little limb – a leg, which as Lucy slowly moves the rod, is joined by another, then a hand and –

They all stare, speechless, as the baby _wriggles_ in the image, sort of squirming around, arching its little body and kicking lightly with its little feet and – and bloody fucking _hell_.

"Yeah, I reckon that's a baby," Shaun says faintly.

"Y-yeah," Lucy says while very, very slowly moving the probe, smearing the gel all over as the image slowly clarifies and they see the whole baby. "That," Lucy says, her voice cracking a little. She clears her throat, swallows, and tries again, pointing at a little thundering bit on the image. "That's the fetus' heart, beating."

"Oh," Desmond says quietly, staring wide-eyed at the image. "Oh, it – has a beating heart already?"

"Yeah, they develop pretty quickly," Lucy agrees, clearing her throat again.

"Can you tell if it's a boy or girl?" Shaun asks, leaning in.

"I'm not an obstetrician – no, I can't," Lucy says and shakes her head. "But, look at this, here?" She says and motions to a line of lighter stuff at the baby's back. "That looks like the lining of the uterus. At least, that's how it looked with Subject 15 too. Here's the placenta – it really looks like… like a womb."

"Desmond, you _actual_ girl," Shaun says, because he really can't help himself.

"Shut up, Shaun," Desmond says, his voice distant and distracted and no bloody wonder. "How… how old is it, Lucy? Can you tell? When did this…" he trails off and bites at the scarred corner of his lip, looking at Lucy.

Lucy considers the image. "I – I'm really not an expert but I'd say… over twenty weeks at least, maybe even twenty-four, twenty-five…" she says to them finally. "Well into the second trimester, anyway. Subject 15 was in the middle of her second trimester when she came to us – and it looked a little like this. We had an actual obstetrician taking care of her, though, and a prenatal nurse did daily ultrasounds…"

Shaun blinks slowly – he doesn't even have to do any math to figure out that, "This is pre-Abstergo. Desmond was pregnant well before he was kidnapped?" he asks and turns to Lucy. "How did Abstergo not notice?"

"We didn't exactly think to check a guy for pregnancy," Lucy says a little defensively and then frowns. "There were no signs then, no indication of anything unusual. Desmond – did you – uh…"

Desmond looks back at her, his eyes a little wide. "What?" he asks.

Shaun folds his arms and does them all the favour of being the asshole who has to say it. "Do you have periods, perchance?" he asks with an arched brow. "Weird changes during puberty? Two sets of tools under the belt, maybe? And did you happen to have some randy gay sex sometime between thirty and twenty weeks ago?"

Desmond just stares at him, his face expressionless.

"Well?" Shaun asks, arching his brows.

"No," Desmond says slowly. "No, no, no and no. To all of it."

"Are you sure –"

"I'm pretty sure I would've noticed if I had a fucking vagina and I think I would be aware of if I had, what the fuck was it, randy gay sex? No to all of that, thank you," Desmond snaps and bangs his head back and down against the examination table. "Shit. Sorry, but no, I didn't… no. No previously known vaginas and no, I haven't had gay sex recently. I don't – I mean…" he makes a face.

Shaun and Lucy share a nervous look. "What?" Lucy asks then.

"I don't know," Desmond mutters and looks to the ultrasound. "I'm just weirdly not surprised by any of this. I didn't know but at the same time I think I didn't… _not_ know either."

Okay, Shaun thinks and runs a hand over his chin. Whatever the hell that is supposed to mean.

Desmond sighs and shakes his head. "Okay. Okay, right. However it happened aside, apparently, I'm pregnant," he says finally, lifting a hand and running his fingers shakily over the still clean side of his belly. "Now what?"

Judging by the look on Lucy's face, she hasn't any clue – she just looks from the baby on the ultrasound machine to Desmond on the examination table and then back again. Shaun looks between them, and then sighs.

"This just went beyond what we can handle here," he says and looks at Desmond. "We need doctors to figure this out. We're going to have to inform your father."

Desmond closes his eyes at that, his cheek flexing as he grits his teeth and swallows.

Lucy frowns, looking down for a moment. "It's still early on," she says then. "Second trimester isn't bad – and Desmond seems to be handling it well, all things considered. And there's still the Apple to find. I'm sorry," she adds when they look at her. "But despite everything the world is still ending. The flare is coming. And _this_ … this doesn't change that we _need_ to find that Apple."

Shaun frowns at that and looks at Desmond who sighs.

"Anything that delays that particular reunion is okay in my books," Desmond mutters and looks to the ultrasound. "Don't tell my dad," he says then, frowning a little. "Not before we have the Apple."

"Mate, you're _bloody pregnant_ ," Shaun points out. "You're a bloke and you're pregnant. Don't you think you could use some of his resources at this point?"

Desmond lets out an annoyed sigh. "I've been fine without them so far," he says and leans his head back, looking up at the ceiling. He looks like he's thinking about it though – and he doesn't like it. "Let's just find the Apple first," he says then. "We can worry about the impossible baby once we're sure there's still going to be a world around for us to be worried on."

Well, when he puts it like that…

"Right," Lucy says. "Good call. Um, Desmond, do you… do you want a printout?" she then offers, motioning to the ultrasound. "I can get you a recording too, if you'd like it?"

Desmond blinks and looks at the screen. "Yeah," he says then. "Yeah, I think I do."

* * *

 

"The good news is, Desmond is all Desmond," Rebecca says when they come back. "No sudden mutations, no changes, no nothing – nothing that we didn't know was already there. High concentration of First Civ DNA and boy howdy do you have a wide range of ancestral DNA. But we already knew that. So I guess the bad news is, Desmond is all Desmond."

"That's wonderfully enlightening, Rebecca, and also vaguely ominous," Shaun says.

"Also weirdly rude," Desmond agrees.

Rebecca gives a sheepish, uncomfortable sort of shrug. "What did you find at the clinic?"

"Well," Lucy says with a sigh and runs her hand over her face. "Desmond is pregnant."

"No shit?"

"See for yourself," Desmond says, taking out the print out of an ultrasound and handing it over. "Lucy reckons it's over twenty weeks old."

Rebecca blinks and looks at the printout, leaning back. "Holy shit, dude," she then says, eloquent as ever.

"Yeah," Desmond agrees and sits on the Animus couch with a sigh.

Rebecca looks between them and the paper. "I did just say that Desmond is all Desmond, right?" she then says.

"Yes, we heard," Shaun agrees. "And it sounded vaguely ominous – what do you mean by it?"

"Well, I thought it would mean that Desmond's pregnancy was bound to be a tumour – since, he's all _him_ whatever's happening is all him too… you know, DNA-wise, I mean. So I thought, tumour. But this," Rebecca leans back in her swivel chair and waves the printout of an ultrasound. "This is bit different," she says and turns the ultrasound around. "You sure this is for real?"

"We’re sure, Rebecca," Lucy says and sits down. "We were all there and I used the ultrasound myself – that's what Desmond has in his stomach. No tumour."

"Damn," Rebecca says. "See, I didn't find any alien DNA. I mean, nothing besides what's regular for Desmond anyway. And the Animus, it's sensitive to these things – remember the issues with Subject 15? The Animus would have found something if there was something to be found. But it didn't, see?" she says, and looks between them. "No other ancestry but Desmond's own."

"Which means…" Shaun trails off and looks at Desmond, his eyebrows arching. Desmond shakes his head, confused, and looks at the others.

"… Desmond is the only source of genetic information?" Lucy asks and looks at Desmond with something like wonder. "Desmond is the _only_ parent the fetus has?"

"As far as DNA currently present in his body goes… there's just his," Rebecca says with a shrug and looks at the ultrasound. "This so wild," she says then and shakes her head. "Damn, dude. You're breaking conventions left right and centre, aren't you?"

"What?" Desmond asks flatly.

"Well, mate," Shaun says, shaking his head. "Apparently you have figured out asexual reproduction. Congratulations. Again."

"… thanks. I guess."


	3. Chapter 3

It comes to them in fits and starts. Every now and then Shaun will look at Desmond lying on the Animus couch, climbing his way through Rome in his dreams and on the screens and he'll realise, _bloody hell, Desmond's pregnant._ And he's not the only one, he knows – every now and then Lucy will stop mid-work and just stare hard at Desmond like trying to peer right through him. Sometimes Rebecca will lean in and just sort of check.

Yep, the bump is still there, all the more obvious now that they all know. Yep, Desmond is still bloody weird.

"Desmond is pregnant," Lucy mouths to herself when she thinks no one is paying attention. "Desmond is pregnant? Desmond is pregnant."

Yeah. It sort of refuses to make sense. Sure they have ultrasounds and Desmond's undying love affair with pickles which Lucy has sheepishly given back to him with a heaping of peanut butter on the side. Desmond has all the signs from the back pains and swollen feet and occasional bouts of nausea but still… It sort of twists your mind around.

Shaun looks at Desmond with his five-o'clock shadow and Adam's Apple and arms and shoulders and all and thinks, _yeah, that is definitely a bloke._ And then Desmond struggles out of the Animus complaining that he has to take a piss, again, damn it, and then it sort of falls over in his head because, bloody hell… Desmond is pregnant.

Desmond is a guy and he's pregnant.

"We really should be getting a proper bloody doctor to look at him," Shaun mutters after Desmond's returned to the Animus and to the hunt of the right memory about the Apple of Eden. "The bloke has literally _extra organs_ in his body now. Are they putting pressure on the rest of his organs? We don't know. Does he have a set of ovaries now, is he suddenly susceptible to ovarian cancer? We don't know that either."

"Nor do we know if the world is going to see the next year," Lucy says, making a face. "I can't be the only one feeling like the issue of the Flare is getting more and more… urgent the further we go. Am I? It's like we're on a deadline now, and it's closing in fast."

Shaun sighs and runs a hand through his hair. She's not the only one feeling like that. "Yeah, but…"

"I'm monitoring all of Desmond's vitals on the Animus," Rebecca says from her workstation. "Blood pressure, heart rate, blood levels… I can't say much about his guts from here, but so far everything looks… normal."

"Which in and of itself can't be normal – the guy is _pregnant_ ," Shaun says and throws his hands up. "By miracle immaculate conception at that! Why am I the only one freaking out about this?"

"You're not, trust me, you're not," Rebecca snorts and leans back, tilting her head to look backwards at him and Lucy. "This has some interesting religious connotations too, doesn't it?"

Shaun, who had been very hard trying not to think about the said connotations, scoffs. "You don't say, Rebecca," he says. "Problem is not many of those involved _men_ , so I don't see how it applies here."

"Not many?" Lucy asks, lifting her head. "So some did?"

"Well… in mythology, sure, plenty," Shaun says and folds his arms. "Gods have kids all the time, sometimes even the regular way, though there's a bunch of them having kids from their hearts and foreheads and whatever. The amount of people swallowing other people and then becoming pregnant by them is kind of ridiculous. Babylonian's even a word for it, their male gods having kids – the begetter. That's what Desmond is, mythology-wise, a _begetter_. He is begetting a baby."

The girls stare at him with arched brows.

"Shut up," Shaun mutters and looks away.

"Could be that those stories don't come from nowhere," Rebecca muses. "I mean, we have the Roman gods and the First Civilisation, being all sort of real, so… maybe there's truth to, uh, begetters."

"We're not calling Desmond a _begetter_ ," Lucy says quickly, making a face

"It kind of fits, though, doesn't it?" Rebecca says, throwing her a grin and then glances at Shaun. "So what do you say are the chances of myths being based on reality?"

"These days?" Shaun asks morosely. "I don't even know. Nor do I want to think about it too much, Rebecca, if I'm being strictly honest. I mean, what would it mean, just evolution and genetics wise, if every so often blokes in history got pregnant for no reason? What does it actually mean?"

It's especially uneasy to think about, knowing how much the First Civilisation had tampered with their genome. Desmond is already the wunderkind of genetics, so if he's that and also pregnant – which he is, bloody hell – and if he's pregnant for a predetermined reason, then…

Shaun feels a bit like whimpering for his sense of historical accuracy and security. Whole human history has already been upended by Abstergo Subjects – namely 16. If now Subject 17 goes and upends what's rest of what they think they know about humanity's evolution and genetic stability…

Bloody hell, Desmond is pregnant, of course, it upends evolution. Desmond's whole bloody ancestry upends evolution, all the way down to… huh…

"You know," Shaun says faintly. "Ibn-La'Ahad means _son of no one_."

"No shit?" Rebecca says, eyebrows arching.

"Altaïr definitely had a father," Lucy says, frowning. "Umar, I think his name was."

"Did _Umar_ have a father though?" Rebecca asks and turns her swivel chair around. She grins at Shaun, who can imagine the look on his face. "You're thinking about it – you're thinking it might be possible. Admit it."

"Not bloody likely," Shaun sputters.

" _I'm thinking_ how about we concentrate on the matter at hand for now?" Lucy suggests, with a look on her face that tells him she too is standing on the edge of that abyss and she isn't quite ready to take that plunge either. "We can worry about mythology once we have the Apple, okay?"

"Good idea, Lucy, yes, let's do that," Shaun says eagerly and turns to his computers. Databases, databases, he can do databases – no world-changing genetics in Renaissance Italy, right?

Rebecca hums. "So, since Desmond's DNA is all there, does that mean the baby is going to be a clone?"

Shaun doesn't bang his forehead against the keyboard, but it's a close thing. "I motion we take the evening off and get rip-roaringly drunk," he mumbles into his palms.

"Seconded. Now get back to work, both of you," Lucy says while Rebecca laughs at them, because Rebecca is actually the worst.

* * *

 

Lucy, the kind and shining human being she is, buys a whole bunch of stuff for them that evening – and a bunch of juice, and even fresh lemon, to make drinks with. It's not even weekend, but apparently having their worldview shattered constitutes a drinking night.

Desmond, Shaun soon finds, is not happy about it.

"What, does this mean you won't make us drinks?" Shaun asks a little plaintively. He'd really hoped to get a Cosmopolitan, he doesn't even care that Rebecca would make fun of him for it, he really needs one right now.

"Eh," Desmond says and picks up the bottle of tequila Lucy had bought, examining the table. "I'm just recalling all the drinking I've done in last five months."

… _Oh_.

"Well, uh, you didn't know?" Shaun offers, wincing, while Lucy grimaces and Rebecca stops examining the six-pack of beer with quite the same enthusiasm as the moment before. Desmond worked at a bar – there'd probably been a lot of drinking. There'd been drinking here too – they had a night off at least once a week to wind down, and… and Desmond really does make really good cocktails. Enjoys them personally too.

Shaun tries to recall if he knows how much it takes to cause foetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Desmond doesn't seem like a guy to get completely plastered, he's never gotten actually drunk in the hideouts either – but he's definitely gotten tipsy a few times.

"Yeah," Desmond says and sets the bottle down. He looks at the assortment of booze for a moment and then shakes his head, turning away. "I think I'm going to go for a walk instead."

They watch him go in suddenly very awkward and unpleasant silence, until the sound of his steps stop echoing in the stairwell. Then they look down.

Well. Shit. That kind of takes the fun out of drinking night.

"I don't know about you guys," Rebecca says and then wrenches a beer bottle open with a bare hand because she's actually an Amazonian or something. "But I really need a drink right now."

"I don't know if that's ironically terrible or terribly ironic," Shaun mutters and sits down. Then with a sigh he reaches for the gin, plucking at the label awkwardly. "We really need a doctor to look Desmond over. Take a sample, run tests, something. Make sure everything's okay."

Lucy says nothing, looking at the tequila bottle. Then she reaches to open it, taking a long, hard swig right from the bottle. Damn. "I'm going to go talk to him," she says, slapping the bottle down and heading for the stairs. "Drink what you drink and then get rid of it. I don't think we're going to have another drinking night after this."

"Hear, hear," Rebecca says, and then does her very best to drain the beer bottle in one go.

Shaun looks at her over the gin, arching a brow. "You are some kind of barbarian," he says. "Not sure what kind yet. There were noble ones that don't fit the bill."

"Don't be a jerk, Shaun," Rebecca says and collapses to sit by the kitchen table, setting the beer bottle down. "I am a Viking if I am something."

Shaun scoffs and then opens the gin bottle – but reaching for a glass first because that's what glasses are for, for containing liquids so that people won't be drinking them straight from the bottle like complete slobs.

They drink in silence for a moment.

"Desmond's pregnant," Rebecca then says.

"Yeah," Shaun agrees and tilts his head back to peer at the ceiling. Crumbling brickwork and moss in the cracks – it still looks more solid than some other hideouts they've seen over the years. They really did build the Sanctuary to last, huh? Wonder how many Assassins had taken shelter there over the years. None in the last five hundred of them, maybe but before that…

It's kind of starting to settle in now, that Desmond's really pregnant.

"I did a thing,," Rebecca wipes a hand over her mouth. "With the ultrasounds."

Shaun lowers his chin slowly to look at her. "You did a _thing_ , Rebecca? Very informative. What _thing_?"

Did she do what he'd been tempted to do and sent them to a professional for thorough analysis?

"I took whole bunch of ultrasounds I found online and wrote an algorithm based on what's on them," Rebecca says and leans back to get her mobile out from her pocket. "Identifying features, forms and so on. It took a few runs and few thousand ultrasounds and it's still probably not perfect but …" she taps at the screen and then set the phone down. "I ran Desmond's ultrasound through it."

"I think that constitutes a breach of confidentiality," Shaun says, even while leaning in.

"We're elbow deep in Desmond's DNA and physiology as it is, I think we're a little past privacy here," Rebecca says and shrugs. "And if there's issues, the sooner we know the better, right? Anyway… according to the algorithm, everything looks normal for a fetus of twenty-four to twenty-eight weeks old. Also, good news…" She holds the mobile out of him to see the screen. "It's not a clone."

* * *

 

"It's a girl?" Desmond asks faintly the next morning, staring at the mobile where Rebecca's app is identifying stuff like arms, legs, heart, lungs, head, yadda, yadda. "The baby is a girl?"

"According to the algorithm, yeah," Rebecca says, while rubbing her forehead with an ice pack. "I'm thinking lack of testicles is what tipped the thing off. I can't say if it's hundred percent, but… I ran all the ultrasounds you took through it, and they all came up as female."

"Huh," Desmond says, staring at the mobile, his face completely expressionless. Apparently, that's how Desmond deals with shocking news – just complete lack of reaction. Right.

"Here's a fun question – how do you take Desmond's genes and come up with a female baby?" Shaun asks into his tea mug. "How does it work? Genetically I mean – Desmond is regular old XY male. Does it mean the baby has just one X chromosome or is she an XY girl or -"

"I'm not an expert. But considering that Desmond has a functional womb all of sudden, I'm not sure regular old genetics even apply anymore," Rebecca says, shrugging and giving Desmond a look. "It's good news though, isn't it? It's not an identical copy of you anyway."

"Huh," Desmond says again.

Desmond giving birth to another Desmond, yeah, that would've been… ugh. Shaun shudders. "What do you think, Lucy?" he asks, hoping for some ray of reason in this sudden world of madness.

Lucy is leaning over Desmond's shoulder and peering at the phone. "A girl," she murmurs. "It's a _girl_. It's a girl?"

"It's a girl," Desmond agrees faintly.

"It's a girl," Lucy repeats, sounding completely baffled. "A _girl_?"

Shaun blinks at her and then leans down a little to take a closer look at her face. It looks a little like she's got tears in her eyes. Okay then. "We've lost her," Shaun says to grinning Rebecca. "Abandon ship and save yourselves, the captain has lost her mind."

* * *

 

The world is still ending, though. Desmond might be pregnant with a world-changing baby girl or whatever, but the world is still ending and they still need the Apple of Eden and Ezio's memories to save it So back to the Animus they all go, with varying levels of mental stability and reason left, with world continuing to shake apart all around them. Smashing good times were had by all.

"What I want to know why you aren't freaked out about all of this?" Shaun says to Desmond while Rebecca is hooking him back into the Animus.

"Who says I'm not?" Desmond asks, leaning back with his left hand resting on the swell of his lower stomach.

"Your expression for one. And the general lack of freaking out," Shaun points out. "Aren't you bothered even a bit by the fact that suddenly you're bloody pregnant?"

Desmond considers that, looking down as Rebecca hooks in the IV. "Eh," he answers. "It's not the weirdest thing to have ever happen," he says.

Shaun considers that. "Okay, I'm going to need you to elaborate what _is_ the weirdest thing to ever happen," he says. "Preferably with itemised bullet point of features that supposedly qualifies it weirder than a man being pregnant with an immaculate miracle baby girl."

"Secret society took over the world and now they're looking for holy alien relics to take it over even _more_ and also the world is ending," Desmond says and looks at him. "I'm living the memories of an ancestor dead for five hundred years and also there was an ancient race of people who could see into the future and one of them talked to me. And I was kidnapped and turned into a human experiment before all of that even started."

Shaun considers that. "No, I think the pregnancy thing is still weirder."

"Let's switch places, you'll see," Desmond mutters. "All things considered, finding yourself in the family way is surprisingly normal, after all of that. Welcome respite even."

"Even though you're male?" Shaun asks incredulously.

"Seahorses do it," Desmond says and closes his eyes. "At least with this, I know what to expect, you know?"

Shaun makes a face. They really don't, though, do they? They don't even know how the whole thing got started, why, if it was actually going normally or if Desmond was about to drop dead from internal bleeding or something. Desmond can't even give birth normally – if he even has a birth canal, his hips are all wrong. He'd end up killing himself and the kid. C-section would be the way to go – and wouldn't that be fun to try and figure while effectively in a bloody cave...

Shaun shudders, as the reality that they'd have to eventually get the baby out _somehow_ settles, heavy and earthshaking.

Bloody mental, all of it.

* * *

 

"So, have you thought about a name yet?"

Shaun looks up from the book he'd been leafing through at Rebecca and then at Desmond who is eating another monstrosity of culinary destruction – a sandwich which is about 90% bacon and the rest of the 10% is probably cancer.

"A name?" Desmond asks and bites into the monstrosity. Ugh, Shaun can just _hear_ the oncoming heart disease. Shaun will eat bacon with the best of them, he's British, they know their breakfast foods – but what Desmond is eating is… just a whole lot of no. There's a limit of how much bacon one should eat per bite and Desmond vaulted over it long ago.

"Yeah – for the baby," Rebecca says and Lucy probably gives herself whiplash with how fast her head goes up. "It's already over halfway done, gonna be born in less than four months or whatever? You gotta start thinking baby names."

Desmond just sort of stares at her. "I... hadn't thought about it," he admits then, while Lucy stares at him with a sort of lost look on her face like she's never seen him before.

To think it would be a baby that would break the great Lucy Stillman, Shaun muses. "You know, Joan is a good name."

Desmond turns to him. "And not in any way related to _Shaun_?" he asks flatly.

Rebecca snorts and jostles Shaun with her elbow. "Did you just ask Desmond to name his baby after you?" she asks. "Is there something you'd like to tell us, Shaun?"

Shaun rethinks breathing. Suffocating to death could be a decent form of existence, nice and quickly over and done with. "Can we pretend I didn't say anything?" Shaun asks. "It's early I haven't had my tea yet, my synapses aren't firing properly yet. Momentary lapse of insanity."

"I am not naming her Joan," Desmond says, eyeballing him suspiciously and then considering his bacon monstrosity. Then he makes a face. "How do people decide how to name babies?" he asks.

"Don't look at me, I'm obviously not an authority there," Shaun mutters.

"My friend named hers after an artist she liked. Another named hers after her favourite flower. Lots of people name their kids family names too, you know, what their aunts and uncles and grandparents and whatnot were called," Rebecca says and shrugs. "I figure it's just… you find a name you like and if it sounds like something you can bear to call someone for the rest of their lives, then that's the thing."

Desmond leans back, thinking about it.

"Or we could print you a list of popular baby names, and you can see if you like any of them," Rebecca offers.

"Hmm," Desmond answers dubiously and runs a hand over his belly. "Not sure I'd want to name my baby based on popularity."

Shaun's brain does a little stumble at that. Judging by Lucy's expression, he's on the only one who got bit lightning struck by the words _my baby_ coming from Desmond's mouth – Lucy just kind of gapes at Desmond in horrified wonder. Completely lost the race there, the poor woman, Shaun muses and clears his throat awkwardly.

"Statistically speaking," he says. "The more ordinary your name is, the better for you. As an Assassin, I mean," he says. "Better for blending in and all that."

Desmond looks at him, frowning a little. "You think my kid is going to be an Assassin?" he asks slowly.

Right, the guy ran away – he probably has some deeply rooted issues about children being raised as Assassins. Actually, thinking about it in those terms, maybe Shaun does too. "You're one," Shaun settles on saying. "Parentage tends to reflect on children. Unless you give her for adoption or something, but in either case, she still has your genes, so…"

Everyone goes quiet at that and Shaun looks between them and then owns it with a shrug. Inching closer to the taboo there, is he? Well, sadly, their reality sucks, and Desmond's genes are the proverbial holy grail – and his kid would have them too. If Abstergo could get their hands on one or the other… Hell, the fact that Desmond is carrying at all is a medical bloody miracle – they've none of them dared to mention it, but dissection for science is kind of a terrible but very real possibility in Desmond's future.

"So yeah, common mundane names," Shaun says and looks down to his book. "The less memorable, the better, for an Assassin."

"… right," Desmond mutters and looks away. He says nothing for a long moment, staring at nothing.

Lucy clears her throat, finally out of her baby-induced stupor. "You still have plenty of time to think about it," she says rather helplessly. "No one's expecting you to come up with a name on the spot – "

"Maria," Desmond says. "I'm gonna call her Maria."

They all look at him as Desmond shrugs and bites into his bacon encrusted sandwich. Well, it is a family name and pretty common, Shaun muses and closes his book slowly. Maria Miles. Sounds a bit like a fictional character. Also…

"Maria the immaculate conception baby. Not helping with the religious connotations there, I must say," Shaun comments and Desmond grins, chewing smugly. _Asshole_.

"Baby Maria," Rebecca says and grins. "That's pretty cute.”

Lucy makes a sort of strangled noise and then quickly drains her coffee. "Right," she says and stands up. "Time to work, people. We still have an Apple of Eden to find."

" _Also_ not helping with the religious connotations," Shaun says and gets up with a grunt. Time to fix a cup of some strong tea to weather him through another day of nonsense. "If anyone starts preaching a holy message I'm out of here."

* * *

 

Of course, that very day they end up finding where the _Prophet_ hid the said Apple of Eden. Of course they do.

 


	4. Chapter 4

So, for a while it's been kind of obvious that Lucy has been struggling with something. It's another thing everyone had been politely ignoring – she just spent seven years undercover, that sort of thing takes a toll on you and worse yet, Lucy spent most of that time undercover at _Abstergo_ , doing God knows what sort of things to maintain that cover. Subject 16, Subject 15, for Christ's sake. They all know what happened to them, after all, you didn't need Desmond's depictions of the blood drawn all over Abstergo Tower to figure out things went tits-up.

Like Desmond, Lucy has nightmares. She gets lost in her own head, in the worst form of daydreaming possible, and occasionally she jumps at noises. The way she looks at the Animus is… yeah. One can easily imagine many very bad memories behind that gaze. And overall it's best not to speak about it – after all, it's not like any of them would like their traumas poked at. So, out of kindness and understanding, they'd done their best to ignore it.

Except it had gotten steadily, increasingly worse since Desmond was found pregnant.

Granted, it got worse for all of them, partially because Desmond is twisting around all sorts of known laws of genetics and reproduction here, bordering on breaking laws of nature really – and partially because everything gets a bit more real when there's suddenly _an infant_ involved. Human nature, really – they are still social, herd animals, mammals to boot. There's ingrained need to take care of the young and not fuck things up too badly for them. Survival of the species, the society, the way of life and, yes, _genes_ … important stuff, to the prehistoric reptile part of their brains.

But Lucy… for Lucy, it seems a bit like the world has ended early.

At first, Shaun thought it was just her budding attraction for Desmond that was making things a tad difficult for her. He can see why one might be attracted to man like Desmond – though he'd found Desmond to be a bit of a doormat at first, he's something else entirely. Incessantly, almost _irreversibly_ … unruffled, that's Desmond. There doesn't seem to be an antagonistic bone in the bloke's body, really, he just rolls with the punches – combine that with striking good looks and now the training of a _Master Bloody Assassin_ and it's a rather appealing package. You'd expect a man like Desmond to be angry, arrogant and conceited, but he isn't, he's almost aggressively un-aggressive.

That core of _Zen_ wrapped in such a lethal casing – in more ways than one too… hell, sometimes Shaun gets a little heart-struck by it. Not that anyone needs to know that. One can't blame Lucy for being a _little bit_ attracted at least.

And now that all around attractive package is pregnant in the most stunning display of sheer self-sufficiency ever – that has to be _very_ confusing. Brain-breakingly confusing, even. Try as one might deny it, reproduction is one of those hard wired things in most people's brains – babies do _weird things_ to brain physiology – so for a woman attracted to a man, a woman just by society's standards is expected to be the baby-bearing one… what does it do to you to know that there's a man who can just go and provide for himself? There's got to be some subconscious nonsense going on there.

Shaun is starting to feel more than a little sexist going down this trail of thought, but that's the thing, isn't it – humans are primarily a two-sexed species, mutations, genetic mishaps and gender preferences aside, large majority are born as one or the other, with clearly defined roles where it comes to baby-making. In a society, in _culture_ which is built around the idea of a two-sexed species, Desmond just does not quite compute, does he?

So, Shaun thought he had it figured out, Lucy's current struggle.

Then the power in the sanctuary goes out and Lucy sits them down and with a heavy, heavy sigh says; "Guys, I have to tell you something," and once they've stopped to listen, she looks down at her hands and admits, very, very quiet, "I'm a Templar."

And turns out, maybe Shaun got the whole struggle wrong.

* * *

It all sort of… blurs together. Her voice.

"It just… made sense," Lucy says quietly, her words echoing in the Sanctuary. "The things I saw, the things I'd read about – things that happened. You can't lie in the Animus, you can't paint a genetic memory with bias – they don't record what people intended to do, just what they did. And on both sides, those things were…"

And she says, "I was so alone, you don't… you can't imagine how alone you can be in the world. Well, maybe you do, Desmond, but to be that alone and then to be surrounded by people who are saying these things, these horrible and yet truthful things about people you thought were your own… day after day until it starts sounding less like a lie and more like a fact of life. And your people aren't there, there's no one there to dispute any of it but your enemies and they're starting to make so much _sense_ …"

And she says, "I knew, I always knew, that Abstergo wasn't good, that some of the things they were doing were terrible, were beyond terrible. I never forgot the atrocities they caused – the Purge, I thought to myself, just think about the Purge. But… but there's also their charity effort and the donations, the hundreds of clinics they support in third world countries, the foreign aid they put _millions_ in. And I know, a lot of that is for tax benefits, but they still do it. A good thing, even if done for bad reasons… it's still good, if it helps people…"

And she says, "I asked, I kept asking to be taken off the mission. That it was too much, that I couldn't handle it. I was just seventeen when it started, seventeen since I saw another Assassin through anything but a short message through email… I said I couldn't do it. But… but I had to keep going. For seven years, in isolation…"

And she says, "And eventually I just… I couldn't. Vidic was kind to me, he took me seriously, he looked at my work and he thought it was good, and that's… I don't know anymore. It felt good, to be respected, to be important to the project. To matter to _someone_ even if it was Warren Vidic…"

And she says, "Subject 15 is dead because of me, because I analysed her status and told them that if we kept going she would eventually suffer a miscarriage and the chance of her surviving it was low. They… removed her from the project after. Killed her, and disposed of her…"

And she says, "Subject 16. I tried, I tried so hard to get him out, but – they refused an extraction. Too much to learn from him, from the project, _just a little longer Lucy, tell us if he finds the Apple Lucy_ … I stopped asking eventually. He got worse and worse until I found him with a knife painting symbols on the walls and then…"

And she says, "By the time they found Desmond… I was done. I was so… so very done. Warren conducted me into the Order, and I agreed… to lead the Project Siren – to help Desmond escape and join the Assassins in order to manipulate him into using the Animus willingly for supposed training. Ezio's life is convoluted and long and very stressful – it drove Subject 16 _mad_ just to try it. Unwilling subject fighting the Animus would never survive the ordeal. But one who chooses to relive the memories himself for what he thinks is to his own benefit…"

And she says, "And once we had the Apple, w-we would use it to save the world, see, we would place it on a Satellite, launch it into space and with it we would stop all the killing, all the fighting, make a peaceful world. And once we saw Minerva's message I thought, I thought we could use it to deflect the Solar Flare, save the world, that we could… that only Abstergo could do it, only they have the resources to do it…"

And she finishes, "A-and I thought I could, that I could do it – b-but now there's baby Maria and I-I keep thinking about Subject 15, and 16, and I _c-can't do this again_ …"

And then she's silent, crying into her hands, shaking all over, and none of them know what to say to any of it.

So, Shaun thinks and takes his glasses off to clean them shakily. So, this is what seven years of isolation from your peers and constant bombardment of opposing – but really, not that diverging – ideologies do to you. Moment by moment, slip by slip – confession by confession – it wears on you and grinds you down until in the end…

You break.

What the hell are you supposed to say to that?

* * *

"Have you told Abstergo about me?" Desmond is finally the first one to talk, his voice quiet in the silent sanctuary, where with the power out they're not listening to the constant hum of the processors. "About Maria, about the Apple?"

Lucy shakes her head mutely, her shoulders shaking.

"Are you going to?"

Lucy draws a shaky inhale and neither shakes nor nods – just wipes at her eyes, her breath hitching. "Y-you should tie me up," she says. "Leave me here, go get the Apple, and then go before they come. They are monitoring this place. T-they've always known where we are."

Well shit, Shaun thinks and looks to Rebecca, whose face is pale and tight with tension. They had spotted unmarked vans in Monteriggioni every so often, but… shit. "And if we leave now, they're obviously not going to follow us," he says flatly. "Especially so if we go without you, our Templar Handler and plant."

Lucy winces and looks up, her face wet and eyes red. "I-if you can shake them. It's a long way to Rome and they don't know where you're going," she says. "I could buy you time. If you knock me out, all the better –"

"We're not going to knock you out, Lucy," Rebecca says, almost snaps. She turns away and runs her hands through her hair, knocking her headphones down and to hang around her neck. "Shit," she mutters. "Fucking Templar, Lucy? Really?"

Lucy looks after her painfully and then looks at Desmond's completely expressionless face and then to Shaun. "I guess safest way would be to kill me," she says quietly and looks down. "Yes, that… that would be the safest way."

"We're not going to kill you, either," Desmond says, frowning – sounding almost angry but not quite. Still so fucking calm, the asshole. "Listen, Lucy… There have been Templars who turned before – Maria Thorpe for one –"

"She was just a knight, Desmond, a soldier. She wasn't a project head of an undercover operation," Lucy says plainly and looks at him. "You have no idea about the damage, the things… things I've done. There's a limit to how far you can go before it becomes unforgivable – and I crossed that line a while ago."

Shit, shit, Shaun thinks and thinks about all the ops, the missions, the intel they'd given to Lucy – which must've passed right through her and to Abstergo. How many of their people are compromised because of her – and the team in Denver, how they'd gone off the grid…

"No, we don't know the things you've done, how far you crossed that line," Shaun says and scowls. "Nor will we find out if we just leave you here for Abstergo to collect. No, you're coming with us and you're telling us _everything_ you've done, everything you've leaked to Abstergo."

She looks at him with such an expression of weariness, it makes him almost take a step back. "You think I will do that after _betraying you_?" she asks, sounding almost amused.

"You're telling us now," Desmond says quietly.

"Yes, but that's because…" she looks at him helplessly, or rather at his belly. "Desmond," she then says and trying to add something more but in the end just hanging her head.

Yeah, Shaun thinks. Babies really have a way of making things a bit more real and more severe. Nothing quite like knowing your actions are fucking things over for someone perfectly, purely innocent.

"Are you going to come with us willingly, or do we need to get a rope or something?" Desmond asks almost sadly.

"Do you really want me to come with you, knowing this, knowing what I've done?" Lucy asks, her voice very small.

Desmond lowers his gaze and then looks at Shaun. Shaun makes a face and looks at Lucy, who looks weirdly small and yet weirdly dangerous sitting there, looking lost and helpless. "We have to," he says finally. "We leave you, and you'll eventually tell everything to Abstergo. Everything you haven't so far anyway. And we really need to know what you told them."

"She's a traitor," Rebecca mutters. "A _Templar_. Damn it, Lucy."

"Sorry, Rebecca," Lucy murmurs, looking down. "I'm sorry."

What a fucking mess.

* * *

In the end they head out together, with Lucy and Desmond in the back of the van, after Rebecca spends a good hour wrapping everything up, taking away what they could on short notice before purging out all their data from the machines they'd be leaving behind, destroying each and every form of communication they had and then going through the rest with a fine-toothed comb – and a high powered scanner.

Their van turned out to house a high number of bugs. If nothing else brought it home, that did it.

Shaun takes the wheel of the van and then he determinedly doesn't think about anything, as he and Rebecca concentrate on shaking whatever tails Abstergo might have on them. Behind them in the back of the van, Desmond and Lucy are both quiet. It's a very, very tense hour or so, before they're clear.

What is there to say, really. Lucy had told them why and how. What else is there now? Nothing but get the Apple and then get the hell out of the dodge if possible. Call Bill, get the cavalry and get all this bollocks sorted out.

Shit, no wonder Lucy had been so easygoing about _not_ letting Bill know about their predicament. Or rather, Desmond's predicament.

"So, what precisely have you been telling Abstergo?" Shaun asks, glancing over his shoulder at the back. Desmond is lying on the Animus couch, staring up at the ceiling of the van, while Lucy hangs her head and stares at her hands. "You've been reporting to them somehow, right?"

"Yes," Lucy says faintly. "Through the network. Vidic has access, he pretended to be William Miles to keep in touch with me. I reported Desmond's progress in the Animus, all the way until… until the pregnancy."

Shaun has no idea whether that makes it better or worse. _Think about the children_ always sounded so vapid to him, American commercialised sentimental nonsense… but if it works…

"The attack on the first hideout," Desmond says, not looking down from the ceiling. "That was planned, wasn't it? You organised it."

"Yes," Lucy agrees, still very quiet. "I had data to hand over, and sense of urgency and threat is proven to be a good motivator for Animus subjects – it was thought to be the reason why Subject 16 got so far, so fast."

"God damnit, Lucy," Rebecca mutters.

"Well, that's just great. I really liked that hideout, you know," Shaun mutters. "We had our own rooms and everything, it was great."

"Abstergo has known about it for years, everything you did there was monitored."

Shaun takes a deep breath and doesn't drive right into a nearby copse of trees out of sheer helpless frustration, though it's a near damn thing. Fucking Abstergo, fucking Templars – fucking _Lucy_. How much of their data was compromised, really? How many of their operations? How many of their people had died because they'd accepted this _leak_ right in their midst without second thought? Just…

"Are you going to try to go back to them?" Desmond asks. "Give us up, give me up – give the Apple and _Maria_ up?"

Lucy says nothing for a long, long while. "No," she then whispers. "I can't."

"You got emotionally manipulated to their side once, it might happen again," Shaun mutters. "Not exactly trustworthy, that promise."

Lucy doesn't answer, and they ride on in tense silence.

* * *

Then there is the Coliseum.

"So, how are we going to do this?" Shaun asks, as they look over the ruins from the side of a road, Lucy sitting on the edge of the van's back with Rebecca standing over her, a stun gun on hand. Still not very happy, Rebecca, but then none of them are at this point.

"I go there and find the Apple," Desmond says, while zipping up his hoodie over the swell of his stomach. He looks down – the fabric has gotten a little tight over his waist.

"You sure you can manage it?" Shaun asks warily, looking him over. "That looks like a lot of climbing and jumping."

It also looks precarious as ever loving hell. It's nothing like in Ezio's time – a lot of the Coliseum ruins have collapsed, the ground itself has given away and there's no easy access to the entrance to the tunnels Ezio had taken to get in the vault. There's not really even much actual ground left, just broken walls and collapsed tunnels.

"I'll be fine. I think I damn well have to be," Desmond says and eases a headset on. "I'll call you when I have something."

It's extra awkward, watching him go, knowing what they do now – but what else can they do? Shaun can't do the parkour stuff to save his life, Rebecca has a bad knee and can't really jump all that well – and it's not like they can trust Lucy to do it. Desmond is the only one who can, pregnant or not.

"Bollocks," Shaun mutters and turns to Lucy. "I really hope you're not going to fuck us over," he says flatly. "I really do. If not for our sake, or even for the sake of the bloody world, then for the baby's sake. Just… fucking _Hell_ , Lucy, this is not what I had in mind for our triumphant recovery of a Piece of Eden."

Lucy's face twists in misery and she looks down and says nothing.

"Come on," Rebecca says and motions with the stun gun. "Back to the van. We gotta be ready when Desmond finds the thing."

"Yeah," Shaun says and looks at Lucy, who Rebecca is urging back into the van. Then he sighs and heads to take the wheel again.

Lucy being a traitor kind of drains the triumph out of the whole thing. Finding the vault doesn't seem like victory, it feels like one hell of a risk to take at this juncture. But what else can they do, really? Time is ticking and they have to keep moving.

"You know, here's a cheerful thought, all around," Shaun calls over his shoulder at Rebecca, now sitting in the back with Lucy. "The door password is 72, right? And in 72 days, Abstergo's satellite is going to be launched and all that. I suppose, at this point we can also assume the Flare is coming in 72 days too, right?"

"Seems like a safe bet," Rebecca agrees.

Shaun says nothing for a moment. "Your algorithm, it said Desmond's baby could be as far as 28 weeks along, wasn't it?" he says quietly. "It’s been a few weeks since we got those, so he could be on his, let's say, 30th week now, right?"

Rebecca says nothing, pressing her lips together and frowning a little.

"Which would leave about ten weeks left," Shaun says. "How much would you bet that Desmond's due date just so happens to be on the 21st of December, too?"

* * *

They find the Vault, in the Vault they find a puzzle and at the end of the puzzle, they find the Apple.

And by the Apple they find Desmond, lapsed into a coma.

**Author's Note:**

> Well...


End file.
